The mother of the man who perished in the Mabura road accident on Sunday said she only learnt of her son’s death at about 1 pm yesterday and she immediately begged God to help her deal with the tragedy.
Fifty-nine-year-old Desiree Paul, the mother of Desmond Hooper, a first aid attendant at the Guyana Sugar Corporation, said she was at work in the Albion cane fields when her supervisor came to pick her up in a truck. “She just told me to leave my first aid kit and go home right away and she did not tell me what was wrong. When I got home one of my sons, Trevor, showed me the Stabroek News [SN] and then I know Desmond was dead,” the woman said.
Hooper, 29, of Number 1 Road, Corentyne, was killed when a tyre on the pick-up, PKK 2652, which he and seven others were travelling in, blew out, causing the vehicle to turn over two times. The passengers were on their way to ‘French Man’, an interior gold mining area. The accident occurred at around 11 am, about four miles from Mabura. Hooper died before receiving medical attention.
Paul said the news was a shock to her but she composed herself and begged God to give her the strength to deal with it. The woman told this newspaper that Hooper had moved to Amelia’s Ward, Linden, last August and he came home for the first time last Saturday. “He told me the boys were leaving to go to the interior on Sunday and he was going with them. He did not spend a long time; he said goodbye to me and told me he gon send a raise for me,” the distraught woman said.
Paul said when she got up yesterday morning she got the feeling that something was wrong. She said she felt sick as though she was going to die but she still went to work. When SN contacted the family yesterday, Hooper’s brother Elroy Paul, 25, was still trying to come to grips with his death. Elroy said he had encouraged his brother to visit them in Berbice and he had promised to come and spend two days.
A grieving Elroy said he had left to help to prepare for a friend’s funeral on Saturday, at the same time, noting that he now has to prepare for his brother’s. The man said when he got home on Saturday his mother told him that Desmond had been to Berbice but had already left. Elroy said he regretted deeply that he did not get to see Desmond, but he said he felt better knowing that he had planned to return soon.
“This is painful; I am really sad right now. I was looking forward to seeing my brother
